The history of antiquity, and the history of the modern world, alike show that small independent contiguous states, speaking the same language, living under similar governments, actuated by similar impulses, and bound together by the ties of cordial sympathy and mutual welfare, are the most favorable for the promotion of literature and science--in fine, for the development of every thing that is great, noble, and useful. On such a theatre, the candidate for literary honor is not overawed by the fame of those who have won trophies in adjoining states. He looks to the commonwealth to which he is attached, for support and applause; and when his name begins to be known abroad, and his fame to spread, his horizon expands with the increasing elevation of his station, until it comprehends the whole system of homogeneous republics. In such a system as this, the literature of each state will be aided and stimulated by that of all the rest--it will draw from all the pure fountains in every quarter of the world, without being manacled and stifled by the absolute authority of any. In such a system as this, there is no _jure divino_ right in science--there is no national prejudice fostered in a national literature; respect, and even veneration, will be paid in such a system to all true learning, wherever it may be found; but there will be no worship, no abject submission to literary dictators. And if such a people may fail to form a regular homogeneous national literature, they will perhaps for that very reason be enabled to carry each art and science, in the end, to a higher pitch of perfection than it could reach if trammelled by the binding laws imposed by an organized national literature. Among the nations of the earth which have made any progress in civilization, we find from the operation of causes which it would be foreign from my object to explain, that Asia most abounds in great and populous empires. And it is precisely in this quarter of the globe that we find a most irresistible despotism in both government and literature. Europe is divided into smaller states, and in them we find more popular governments, and more profound literature. Of all the portions of Europe, Greece was anciently the most divided; but as long as those little states could preserve their freedom, they were by far the most successful cultivators, in the ancient world, of every art and every science. The literature of the little republics of Italy, during the middle ages, illustrates the same great principles; and the rapid progress of the little states of Germany, since the general pacification of Europe in 1815, in literary and philosophical research of every kind, proves likewise the truth of the remarks made above.